Explaining the Links between Workload, Distress, and Work-Family Conflict among School Employees: Physical, Cognitive, and Emotional Fatigue

Ilies, Remus; Huth, Megan; Ryan, Ann Marie; Dimotakis, Nikolaos

Journal of Educational Psychology, v107 n4 p1136-1149 Nov 2015

This study examined the intraindividual relationships among workload and affective distress; cognitive, physical, and emotional fatigue; and work-family conflict among school employees. Using a repeated-measure, within-person research design, the authors found that work demands and affective distress, as well as cognitive, emotional, and physical fatigue, were associated with experienced work-family conflict. However, the effects of work demands and affective distress on work-family conflict were mediated mostly by participant reports of emotional fatigue when the three types of fatigue were considered together. Importantly, emotional fatigue was associated with both self-reported and spouse-reported work-family conflict. Overall, the results support a resource depletion framework for how workload and job distress in an educational setting can affect work-family conflict.